Short telomeresâ€”the protective caps on the ends of chromosomesâ€”have been previously linked to increased risk of death from heart disease. Now, research by scientists at UC San Francisco and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco has found that change in telomere length over time is also important: heart disease patients whose telomeres shrank over time had a worse short-term prognosis than those whose telomeres stayed stable, and those whose average telomere length grew over the course of the study had a higher chance of survival.

Over 700 newly recognized bird species have been assessed for the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM, and 11% of them are threatened with extinction. The update also reveals a devastating decline for the giraffe, driven by habitat loss, civil unrest and illegal hunting. The global giraffe population has plummeted by up to 40% over the last 30 years, and the species has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

Extinctions related to climate change have already happened in hundreds of plant and animal species around the world. New research shows that local extinctions have already occurred in 47% of the 976 plant and animal species studied.

Blood-forming stem cells are able to count and store memories of the number of times that they divide, findings which could have major implications for disease research, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found.